Man gets 90 days in jail for firing gun outside bar

A Dartmouth man who fired a shotgun into the air outside a bar after he had been ejected for inappropriate behaviour has been given 90 days in jail and three years’ probation.

Alan Frederick Estabrooks, 43, was sentenced Monday in Dartmouth provincial court. He pleaded guilty earlier to careless use of a firearm, two counts of criminal harassment and four charges of unsafe storage of guns or ammunition.

Estabrooks was kicked out of Monte’s Bar & Grill on Waverley Road in Dartmouth at about 1:30 a.m. on Jan. 21, 2011, after allegedly groping a former girlfriend, a charge he was acquitted of at trial. He was told he was barred for life.

Estabrooks, who had consumed about half a dozen beer, drove his pickup to his home on nearby Ancona Place and retrieved a 12-gauge shotgun before returning to the bar.

After arguing with the bar employees for another 10 minutes about what had occurred, Estabrooks walked to his vehicle in the upper parking lot, took out the shotgun and discharged it into the air.

Estabrooks admitted to the court that he fired the weapon with the intent of harassing the bar staff for ejecting and banning him.

As it was closing time, bar staff and several patrons were in the lower parking lot when the shot was fired.

People scrambled for their lives, many running back into the bar and hiding in fear.

Estabrooks left the scene in his vehicle and went home, where Halifax Regional Police arrested him.

A search of his residence turned up three improperly secured firearms — the shotgun and two rifles — as well as ammunition that was unsafely stored.

Estabrooks had never been in trouble with the law before and was suffering from depression at the time of the shooting.

Defence lawyer Gordon Allen sought a conditional discharge with probation, a sentence that he said would enable his client to continue to work full time and volunteer with youth groups at his church.

Crown attorney Alex Keaveny argued for a sentence of 18 months in jail and two years’ probation.

Judge Frank Hoskins rejected the defence request for a conditional discharge, saying it would be contrary to the public interest.

“It is my view that denunciation and general deterrence must be strongly emphasized,” Hoskins said.

“The commission of the offences involves a very serious act of discharging a firearm in a public place for the purposes of engaging in threatening conduct toward innocent bystanders.

“The courts must ensure their sentences are perceived by the public as strong condemnation of this type of behaviour.”

He said the proliferation of guns in Halifax Regional Municipality is a continuing concern for the public and for the courts.

“The sentence imposed here today must reflect society’s abhorrence of those who decide to resort to the actual use of a firearm to engage in threatening, violent behaviour to settle disputes.

“Violence in public places in HRM plagues the city. It must be deterred, denounced and stopped.”

The judge went along with a defence motion to have Estabrooks serve his time at the Dartmouth jail on weekends. He ordered him to report to the Central Nova Scotia Correctional Facility this Friday by 8 p.m.

Estabrooks’s three-year probation order requires him to take part in counselling for mental health, substance abuse and anger management and forbids him from having weapons, consuming alcohol or drugs and being within 25 metres of Monte’s.

He has to remain in Nova Scotia unless he has written permission from his probation officer. That should allow him to keep visiting his parents in Sackville, N.B., the judge said.

Hoskins also fined Estabrooks $1,500 for careless storage of the guns, prohibited him from possessing firearms for 10 years and directed him to provide a sample of his DNA to a national databank.